Pollution in Cebu, Philippines

PerJohn Kay's comment, my experience differs on two points: crime and Cebu City's future.

Crime is a major problem here; not just for tourists but for locals too. There's a good reason why virtually all homes here are protected by barb wire on their fences/perimeter and bars on their windows or guards at community gates. As my servants and family members can attest from personal experience, armed robbery is commonplace. So are burglaries. Pickpockets are everywhere and many (most?) folk are eventually victimized by them.

I've faced down a trio of street thugs and I've thwarted thieves attempting to scale my fence and invade my property -- but only because I am twice their size. My home was burglarized 3 times before I fortified it with razor wire. On separate occasions, two drug addicts have been shot in front of my house and one of them died. A cab driver crashed into my retaining wall after being stabbed by his passenger. And this all happened in a normal residential neighborhood.

Criminals do favor weaker, smaller, victims, so being big and tall is a definite advantage here.

As for Cebu City's future, you said that (and I quote): "Cebu will only get better in the coming years." I've lived here over 13 years now and have watched traffic, pollution and crime get progressively worse. There's next to no city planning here: there's no room to expand roads and endemic government corruption assures progress will be painstakingly slow. Water utilities are a joke: no water pressure and new service requests are usually denied (as it is in my case). I had to have my water well extended because the water level dropped too low. The Philippines has the third-most-expensive electric service in all of Asia.

With air conditioning and cheap taxi/Grab service, life here can be pretty good. But you need enough money to fortify your home and pay high
electricity bills. With the low cost of living here, the tradeoffs above are acceptable to some, like me. But it's certainly not for everyone.